Earlier today Sporting Kansas City used pick number 43 to select 6'7 center back Stefan Antonijevic. The former Valparaiso defender's performances earned him the title of Horizon League Defensive player of the year. Cool, who cares? he's just another supplemental draft pick from a relatively small college that will just be used as an extra body during pre-season right?
Wrong. After I saw we had picked him I obviously scanned through the short bio and two things stuck out to me. His height and his last name. After doing a little research I found some very surprising info on him....Stefan Antonijevic is a Chicago Fire boy. He played for at least a year with the development academy and also played with the Chicago Fire premier team. Should we sign him it would be quite interesting seeing as Chicago Fire are our rivals. Another interesting tid-bit is that Stefan also suited up two times for the Serbian U-19 team against Russia and Ukraine.
The more I see of him the more highly I think of him. And the more articles I read I think he could really be a good fit for Sporting Kc. Below is a solid hour of 2011 game play footage of Stefan. Your homework is to watch all of it, all of it.
Stefan Antonijevic - 2011 Highlight and Game Film (via VUMSO)